7 thoughts on “Quote of the day—UR a Smart Ass, Carl @cleflore23”

  1. Yes, well; then we must argue, ad nauseum, and forever, over what is or is not “unjust”, and so we’re right back to where we started, staring each other down with spears and Molotov cocktails in our hands.

    For your information, and because no one else talks about it; the Biblical standard is this; obey your nation’s rulers until it becomes impossible to do so without violating God’s law. Only THEN do you disobey, and only on that specific point, and make it absolutely clear, to all concerned, why.

    IOW, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.” That’s what it means. It’s not just a cute story, or a way to shrug off the injustices of the world with smart-sounding but weak words. It’s THE standard.

    If nothing else, everyone, even of both mindsets, can understand it, even while having totally opposite definitions of “just” and “unjust”. I don’t know of any other moral standard that can be so easily and clearly understood by both mindsets.

    I guarantee that your worst enemies understand it, and perfectly well too. And for the time being they’ll do everything they can to take advantage of it (and there’s a lot of advantage for them to be had), while continuously and purposefully tempting you to violate the standard. Such is the world.

    Based on that standard we’ll see who belongs to which side. Its called “separating the wheat from the chaff”. It’s about as “cut and dried” as it gets.

    • OK, I’ll bite. Obeying governments comes mostly from Paul. Who bragged about all the times he was persecuted for violating government laws he had no regard for? Stoned, beaten, put in prison, left for dead. Because he was obeying government right?
      I love the rendering on to Caesar deal. How come no one seems to get that it was a witty answer to a disingenuous question? Posed by an bunch of political criminals. Not a commandment?
      I mean that’s why they killed Jesus, right? He was so law abiding?
      Him and all his disciples?
      I pretty sure gods standard for us is a battle between wheat and weeds for root space. Just like Jesus said it was.
      Sorry bro, Your standard sounds kind of Romish to me.

    • Cut and dried. Huh.

      I am often puzzled when one of my cleverer blind fellows latches onto an elephant’s tail and, with unwavering confidence, pronounces the pachyderm as a sort of large snake. In my own blindness, with my arms wrapped around the elephant’s leg, I can clearly tell that it is much more like a tree.

      “In the beginning was the Word … All things were made by Him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

      It seems improbable that, in answering the tax question that was intended to trick him, Jesus would provide an answer that would be at odds with the Creation story of His Father. Perhaps there is something more in His answer than first meets the blind man’s eye.

      In terms of our secular law in America, The Founders of our unique form of government, and those whom we trust to adjudicate our disputes about it, have stated variously over the past 200 years that a “law” which is repugnant to our Constitution is no law at all, is void the moment it is deemed to have been enacted, and ought not be obeyed.

      A notion that we are obligated to obey laws, rules and edicts from government as long as they don’t abrogate our greater duty to obey God’s law is an admirable one, perhaps especially for those subject to more despotic forms of government than ours. The early rebelling Lutherans proposed just such an understanding to Emperer Charles V in their Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate. Our Republican form of government is based upon a different kind of relationship in which we consent to a government that is supposed to abide by our contract and operate within the boundaries that we established. Blind submission to government lawlessness is not part of that agreement.

      Dave

    • Never mind the biblical standard. The US standard is in the Constitution. And the question isn’t so much “is it unjust” but rather “is it Constitutional”.
      For a very good and detailed analysis, read Lysander Spooner’s “Essay on the trial by jury” (and also “The unconstitutionality of slavery”). The former is an excellent discussion, at great length, of the power and propriety of jury nullification.

      • Might also recommend No Treason. Do not fall back on the Constitution and call it a day; it has been almost entirely powerless to stop them. At best, it’s only slowed them down.

    • Ahh… yes… “so easily and clearly understood.” “It’s about as ‘cut and dried’ as it gets.”

      [SNORT]

      That would mean there has never, or at least throughout the last couple thousand years, been significant disagreement over what is God’s will. Or, for that matter, the nature of God, god(s), or the existence thereof. And of course you are the near perfect example of that having never expressed a difference of opinion with any major religion.

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